Page 3 of Elizabeth Bennet and the Scottish Laird

The house settled around her. Upstairs, her mother's voice rose again, querulous and shrill. Mary's footsteps crossed the landing, measured, deliberate, utterly unmoved. Kitty and Lydia's chatter floated from the parlour, punctuated by giggles they tried to muffle and could not.

Elizabeth returned to the desk and stared at the documents Uncle Philips had left. Proof of a lineage that had lain dormant for a hundred years and now rose up to swallow them whole.

They now had letters to write and creditors to manage. They would also need to pack away the household, piece by piece. And they only had a few weeks to dismantle their lives before a stranger took possession of everything they had ever known.

Outside, the afternoon was fading. Mist crept up from the fields, blurring the edges of the garden. Mrs Hill was speaking to one of the labourers by the kitchen door. Elizabeth thought she heard something about whether to cut the barley now or wait for better weather. These ordinary concerns struck her as strange now. After all, these would soon be the rhythms of a life that would go on without them.

She folded the attorney’s papers with care and placed them in the desk drawer. Then she rose and went to face her mother's lamentations, her sisters' bewilderment, and the wreckage of a future she had never imagined.

The last roses in the garden were fading, their petals browning at the edges. Soon winter would come. And with it, a reckoning.

Chapter 2

Darcy House, London

The letter arrived after breakfast.

Darcy had been examining the estate accounts forwarded from Pemberley in the morning room, his sister seated across from him with her embroidery.

The footman brought the post on a silver tray. Three letters: one from his steward at Pemberley, another from his aunt Lady Matlock, and a third in Bingley's hasty scrawl. Darcy broke the seal on Bingley's letter first, expecting some cheerful discourse on hunting prospects or an invitation to Scarborough.

The words struck with unexpected force.

I write with grave news. A letter reached me from Mr Hurst. As you know, he and my sister have made use of what remains of my lease on Netherfield to get away from town every now and then. During their last visit, they were made aware of rather dreadful tidings. Mr Bennet of Longbourn passed suddenly on the twenty-seventh instant. An apoplexy, the physician said. The family is devastated. Miss Elizabeth bears the weight of managing everything, as you might expect. The situation is complicated by the entail. Longbourn passes not to Mr Collins as was believed, but to some distant Scottish cousin none of them have ever met. They face displacement within weeks. I fear for the family, especially Miss Bennet, of course. My thoughts wander to her more often than I care to admit.

Darcy set the letter down carefully, his fingers resting on the edge of the paper. The room seemed suddenly too warm despite the chill.

“Is something amiss, brother?” Georgiana asked, glancing up from her work.

“Bingley writes that an acquaintance has died. Mr Bennet of Longbourn in Hertfordshire.”

Georgiana's needle paused. “How very sad. Were you well acquainted with the gentleman?”

“Not especially.” Darcy rose, moving to the window without conscious thought. “He had five daughters. The family will face some difficulties, I imagine.”

He did not elaborate. How to explain the complexity of his feelings to his innocent sister? The guilt that churned in his chest at the mere mention of the Bennet name?

It had been five months since that disastrous morning in the Hunsford parsonage lane when he had laid his heart bare before Elizabeth Bennet and received only righteous anger in return. Her words had seared themselves into his memory with a clarity that time had done nothing to diminish.

Had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.

The accusation had been just. He knew that now, though the recognition had come slowly. He had proposed with an arrogance that still made him wince in recollection. He had enumerated all the obstacles to their union: her inferior connexions, her family's want of propriety, the degradation such a match would bring him. And he had expected her gratitude for his condescension.

What manner of man behaved thus?

You are the last man in the world I could ever be prevailed upon to marry.

He had left Kent immediately, his pride in tatters. At Pemberley, he had thrown himself into work with desperate energy. The new watering system for the lower fields had been completed ahead of schedule. Every tenant cottage had been inspected, and he had ordered repairs where needed. He had increased his donations to the village school, visited the sick, and attended to estate business with a thoroughness that had his steward commenting upon his diligence.

As if industry might somehow prove he was not the man she had named him.

After a while, he had taken Georgiana away to London. A change of scenery and the excitement of town ought to improve his mood, thus had been his reasoning.

Yet every evening, when the work was done and he sat alone in his study, her face rose before him. The flash of her eyes as she had refused him. The tremble in her voice as she had catalogued his failures. The set of her shoulders as she had walked away.

He had been so certain of his reception. So confident that his consequence and fortune would overcome any objections she might harbour.

And now her father was dead.